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Rich nations should ditch ‘unsustainable’ lifestyles: China’s Wen
AFP via Yahoo!News
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and a top UN official urged industrialised nations Friday to alter their lifestyles and not let the global financial crisis hamper climate change efforts.
Industrialised nations should also help developing countries respond to climate change, Wen said at the opening of a two-day international meeting on global warming in Beijing.
“The developed countries have a responsibility and an obligation to respond to global climate change by altering their unsustainable way of life,” the state news agency Xinhua quoted him as saying.
(7 November 2008)
Suzuki’s talk – ‘one of the greatest speeches in history’ (video)
Dr. David Suzuki, CPAC
On October 30th, 2008, in Ottawa, the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (NRTEE) hosted a unique round table forum entitled “Securing Canada’s Future in a Climate Changing World”, which marks the organizations 20th anniversary.
Dr. David Suzuki was the keynote speaker.
(30 October 2008)
Dr. Suzuki is more emotional than I’ve ever heard him. EB reader calls it “one of the greatest speeches in history.”
Carbon Regulation to Change All Aspects of Life
Bill Paul, Energy Tech Stocks
Original headlline: It’s the Dawn of a New Age Of Investing; Get Ready for Carbon Regulation to Change All Aspects of Life (Pt. 1 of 4)
“The average American has no clue what is about to hit them. Neither does the average investor. The magnitude of the life changes we’re about to see is simply incredible.”
This is how Catherine Elder, an energy expert at noted consultancy R.W. Beck, describes what will be the impact of a federally-imposed system to regulate the U.S.’s carbon dioxide emissions. Such a system will create a nationwide “cap-and-trade” financial market that permits companies that reduce their carbon “footprint” below a federally-prescribed annual limit to profit at the expense of those that do not. They will profit by selling “credits” based on how many tons of CO2 they eliminate over and above what they will be required to. (One ton will equal one credit.) Each year the limit will be lowered, the idea being to gradually reduce atmospheric levels of this greenhouse gas without seriously impairing economic growth.
According to Elder and other experts, the U.S. is about to become the last and most important link in what will be a global cap-and-trade financial market. With cap-and-trade already a $100 billion annual market in Europe, with new markets ready to launch in Australia and Japan, and with regional markets already operating in the Northeast and Western parts of the U.S. as well as in parts of Canada, Washington’s entry into cap-and-trade will mark the dawn of a new age of investing.
This will be an age where investors must pay close attention to a company’s carbon footprint because the size of it is going to impact everything else including gross revenue, operating expenses and, of course, net income. The stakes are going to be huge.
(10 November 2008)
KunstlerCast Bonanza (audio)
Duncan Crary, KunstlerCast
The KunstlerCast is a weekly audio program about the tragic comedy of suburban sprawl.
Featuring: James Howard Kunstler, author of “The Geography of Nowhere”, “The Long Emergency” and other books.
Duncan Crary, host/producer, speaks with Kunstler weekly about the failure of suburbia and the inevitable end of this living arrangement with no future.
(November 2008)
I hadn’t been seeing KunstlerCasts in the last few weeks, so I went to the website and found that the weekly podcasts are still being produced. In fact, there’s a whole archive of KunstlerCasts (37 at least count).
Is it my imagination or is the fiery Kunstler starting to mellow? For example, see the recent KunstlerCasts 34 (On Hope and Despair) and 37 (Impotent Politics). -BA
